Bittersweet happy dance

I'm not surprised you both cried, I'm sitting here sniffling myself! What a wonderful gesture, Liz. I can't be any more eloquent than anyone else has been, but you do help restore my faith in humanity, in general. Tegan

I am making memorial works. some for Grand parents , aunts and other close family i never was lucky enough to know. I also combined works dome by some of my unknown relatives in an Album , see my site

the work "Album of fabrics Remember ". \ In same erxhibition other artists included fabrics they inherited and i included a tablecloth made `twice` by my OMA , mirjam

It's a lovely exhibition. Very touching. Did you do the sculpture as well

- I really like the keyhole piece.

Thanks for sharing, ellice

It was. I'd never seen such a tiny coffin.

Way to go! I was looking at the floss this weekend and tossed it onto the green and blue fabric pieces I have. Didn't really move me. I guess I'll have to break down and order the mint green linen that Thea used. sigh. I was hoping to start it soon. :(

Joan

I can understand that. Fortunately, I had Donna to help with the floss toss. I have this huge ring of silks - for this little piece. It's definitely a stash enhancement because it's ot using much of most of the colors - except the greens. I had to do some color swapping because of being on the pale blue linen. So, my flowers are deep purple, paler purple and pinks. Kept the yellows. Hope it ends up looking all right. I'm not totally convinced about using a single strand for the stem backstitching on band 3, but I'm leaving it as is until I do more.

Last night I finished bands 3 & 4, and halfway thru band 5. DH requested that I change the cat to a dog, so, I had to do some little alterations. Very precise - as in I used the handy green highlighter, adding some shape blobs to my working copy (enlarged) of the chart, and well, I think I'll be winging it. Happy to say that the cut thread went very well - my precious hardanger scissors did their job and made me remember why I splurged on them

- no little fuzzies sticking out of the satin stitches. I used RG Elegance instead of the Soie Perlee, and it looks fine. And I did add some really nice sparkle in, subtly, with some flowers in band 5.

My only question at this point, when I did the double herringbone hem stitch, it's not really pulled where the thread wrapped - she only showed 1 wrap around the bars. But, now I'm thinking that perhaps I was supposed to wrap the entire bar, so I may just pull that out, carefully... It was quite quick to stitch that section - at least for me. But, the chart is kind of weak in that it has a vertical V in the space between the threads of the cut area, but no explanation at all. The stitch diagram just shows the single wrap, but the picture on the cover kind of looks as if it were wrapped more (hard to see - it's a small piece, small photo - even under a magnifier). You can just see the vase at the top of the inset photo on the VS website (by the blurb for the accessory pack). I'll try and bribe Donna with a latte into meeting up, so that she can give an opinion! For now, I'm leaving it.

Also - we decided to change the words - I think I'm going to repeat the knit stitch going the other direction, and add either the rosebud band again or the buttercups.

The all time DH quote last night "Is this a gift or what's it for?" I just looked at him, and said "just because....ummm, it's a little project, and, ummm, well, all my other projects are big, and, well, I wanted something little that I could just do and finish, and well, it'll look nice in the sunroom!" DH is quite familiar with the term UFO - vs my many WIPs... So, I'm definitely finishing this up fast. He actually remembers things about my stitching - scary.

Well, that's enough blabbing for now, Ellice